


In dusty recesses

by jauneclair



Series: All men dream [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Eleanor-typical profanity, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Madi POV, Other, Other Pairings to Come - Freeform, S4 AU - pirates rule Nassau, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-12-31 16:38:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12136632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jauneclair/pseuds/jauneclair
Summary: Flint was not the pirate king that she had wanted (that part of her still longed for), but he was steadfast, and her partner. So he was her king and she was his Maroon queen.S4 AU - an army of pirates and slaves controls Nassau. In the absence of Long John Silver, Madi and Flint reign.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think it's necessary to have read the first part of this series to understand what's going on here, but you might consider it anyway for fun :) Title once again from a T.E. Lawrence quote, and thanks to @jamesbarlow for encouragement.

When Edward Teach and Jack Rackham sailed into the Nassau harbor with the ship of the defeated governor in tow, Madi allowed herself a snatch of hope.

When the slave planations revolted, led by a man she heard called Julius, Madi's hope kindled.

When their allied forces, pirate and slave, seized Nassau-town, Madi felt that maybe, _maybe she_  never had cause to doubt Flint or herself at all.

When Flint's crew raised the _Walrus_ and the rest of the armada from the sea, and found no John Silver among the decaying dead, her heart foundered: the absence of death did not mean proof of life.

When she suggested to Flint the necessary course of action regarding Billy Bones, he didn't so much as flinch. She sent Kofi, though, so it would be known that this judgement came down from Madi's hand.

She and Flint ruled Nassau together. There was still the council: Teach, Julius, Rackham, the woman called Max who always seemed to end up on the right side of history. But this had been _their_  war, hers and Flint's, a war prosecuted and ended on their terms, not for pursuit of vengeance or greed or power for power's sake. Flint was not the pirate king that she had wanted (that part of her still longed for), but he was steadfast, and her partner. So he was her king and she was his Maroon queen.

They were all leaving a meeting - a meeting about the redistribution of lands in the interior, about which Teach and Rackham had been woefully uninterested and unhelpful - when Madi found herself in lockstep with Max. Madi still didn't grasp the full picture of this woman, swaths still missing where rumor and observation didn't twine. Supposed former of lover of Eleanor, Rackham's former partner, a brothel whore who had risen to control half the commerce of Nassau - who, Madi recognized, held herself like a queen, but ruled from secret courts.

"I realize now that I never offered you condolences on the death of your father," Max said as they descended the stairs of the former governor's mansion. "I am very sorry to hear of Mr. Scott's passing. He was a great friend to Nassau."

"Thank you," Madi said. _He was Nassau. For a long time._  "Did you know him well?"

"Ah, I saw him here and there. Eleanor told me things." When Max turned to her, her lips quirked in something that was not quite a smile. "But it turned out that no one knew him quite that well in the end, yes?"

Her comment irritated Madi: because it was true, and it applied to Madi herself, and this other woman likely knew it.

They passed out of the mansion and into the sunlight.

"Though I think he would be surprised to see who you have partnered yourself so closely with," Max continued.

"You mean Captain Flint." Max nodded. "But you are incorrect. My father agreed that we, my people, needed these pirates to hunt for us. Needed Captain Flint to lead them."

"Yet now you are practically his apprentice, no? Your father warned you, surely, of the misfortune that befell those who stood close enough to Flint to know his intentions - the unfortunate Mr. Gates, poor Mrs. Barlow, and lately Mr. Silv -- "

"Stop," Madi said.  Max's mouth drew tightly closed. Madi stopped in the middle of the street, turning to face the other woman head-on. "I am committed to Captain Flint. He is committed me. I did not ask for your counsel and I am not convinced that you are truly invested in my success, if what follows is Captain Flint's success as well."

"I wish for your success," Max said, "so long as your plan is for a prosperous, _peaceful_ Nassau. I will do everything in my power to prevent the outbreak of violence on these streets again, and that is why I am telling you that trust is a valuable and limited commodity here. The street is willing to invest a great deal of its trust in you, for now; in Captain Flint, it is not so convinced, not when there is so much…history."

"What is your point? There are times and places when we diverge, even if we seek to appear united to keep the alliance of pirates and slaves strong."

Max touched Madi's elbow and lowered her voice. "And that is the heart of the matter. People say that you care for each other. That you are close to each other. Closer than partners, or friends, generally are."

"Who? Who says such things?" Madi asked. Not her own men, surely. She would find out, soon enough.

Max shrugged.

"You will put a stop to it."

"If you need this from me, then there will be -- "

"No. No trade, no cost. No games. If you are invested in Nassau's success as you say, then you will try to put an end to these rumors. That is how you earn _my_  trust."

Max was quiet.

"I see it is important for you, then," Madi said, "to feel needed."

Max tilted her head to the side. Her expression was very still, her hands clasped in front of her. "Perhaps someday, there will be something you truly will need from me."

And Madi felt - afraid, in a way she hadn't since she'd watched a cannon shot send John Silver flying into the water. But just for a moment, and then it passed, and Max was bidding her a good day.

* * *

They weren't lovers; not truly. They were always making love to the ghost between them.

At the end of the day, duties concluded, Madi returned to the governor's mansion - no governor's no longer - and to the office that Woodes Rogers once occupied but was now hers. Each time she entered, the thought filled her with a perverse sense of satisfaction: _look_ , we started taking things back.

She sat and composed letters to her mother, about their progress in the interior, of the preparations for the resettlement of their people on Nassau.

Evening brought dinner and Flint to her door.

They ate here in the study, most nights - when their council meetings didn't run long, when Flint wasn't needed aboard the _Walrus_ , when he didn't (as he occasionally did) retreat to the Barlow house for a night's reprieve. Sometimes they were quiet with each other; sometimes one of them would read aloud from a book; sometimes they would debate, fiercely, philosophy or theories of economics, or sometimes they would trade stories. Madi gave freely of her past, and appreciated the dribbles and drabs Flint gifted her with in return: memories of his life with Miranda, in Nassau and London; memories of Thomas, like polished, warm, round, shining stones for Madi to safeguard in her pockets.

Only one topic and one name was taboo, never to be broached between them.

This night was a silent one. Flint had been at the harbor, surveying the completion of their fleet with Teach, which had likely involved tedious and well-trod arguments. And her own head was fraught with thoughts of politicking. If she had ever thought war glorious, then governing was its perfect opposite.

She wouldn't tell Flint what Max had relayed, not tonight - not until she was sure it had been dealt with. Not with what she knew of him now, of his past experiences as the subject of scandal.

Eventually, when the candles had burnt low, Madi rose.

"Will you stay tonight?" she asked.

Wordlessly, Flint nodded. He took her outstretched hand and followed her into the master bedchamber.

She pushed his coat from his shoulders and stretched up to give him a kiss. When they parted, she could practically see the wistfulness of her own eyes reflected in his clear green ones. They had become so much like mirrors of the other.

"You deserve happiness," Flint sighed, hands coming up to cup her face.

Madi wrapped her own hands around Flint's wrists. Like every part of him, they were thick with muscle. She curved her blunt nails into the sinews, pressing deep.

"Then make me," she told him. "Happy."

So he undressed her, as she would later undress him, and laid her out on the wide bed as he knelt between her legs and buried his face in the juncture of her spread thighs. It was some kind of hell, surely, when he always made her come so beautifully, that she always had another man's name on her lips.

He understood, of course: that was why he could be her partner. She recognized that understanding when they laid facing each other on the bed, naked, and she drew her hand up and down his thick red cock. This was the only place they spoke of John, when Madi was driving Flint towards abandon: spilling out stories of what John would do, what sweet, filthy words he would say, how his tanned skin once shone like bronze in the candlelight, when he was spread out naked in her bed.

Flint bit down on his lip hard when Madi drew his surrender from him, silent as ever. The only sigh that emerged was the protestation of the mattress as his body, lax, sunk into it. Madi crawled up his side, her tongue darting out to collect those beads of blood that gathered on his abused lip.

"Stay," she commanded, and Flint mumbled his ascent as she slotted her body next to his. A freckled arm, thick with muscle and marked with scars, slipped around her shoulders.

Madi closed her eyes. It was good to be held, no matter by whom.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which disagreements on the future of Nassau abound, on many sides.

There were disagreements among the council. That was to be expected with so many long-standing grudges and prejudices to be (generally) smoothed over. But there was one issue on which the two sides were deeply entrenched, with no signs presently hinting at a detente.

"You have expelled Woodes Rogers from Nassau and left him in the hands of his creditors," Max said, "but Eleanor Guthrie still sits in jail!"

"Eleanor Rogers," Teach said. "That is the name she took of her own will. You expect us to forget that? You may have scraped together enough forgiveness or forgetfulness to have gained a seat at this table - which I still do not support - but not all of us forget who she was standing behind, and who was standing behind her."

"I do not think that most people sitting at this table can often claim to act in the spirit of forgiveness," Max said. 

"There are worse fates for Eleanor Guthrie than to continue to sit in jail," Rackham said, leaning forward to close the some of the distance between himself and Max across the table. Behind his chair, dwelling in seemingly the only patch of shadow in their meeting room, his red shadow stirred.

Across the table from Madi, Julius huffed.

"Pardon?" Rackham said. "Has something I said amused you in some way? I do like to aim for levity, in almost all things, but we are sitting here debating the fate of Nassau's dearest enemy and it is hardly a scoffing matter."

"The Queen of Thieves, they called her," Julius said. He flicked his hand at the table and its assembled residents. "All of you called her, once. And now the remaining thieves try and speak justice to one another. Well, there is a saying - the only good thief is a dead thief."

"That is not a view that I share," Madi said, before anyone else could. She saw Rackham's brow furrow, Teach's hand stray towards his hip, Max's lips purse. She felt less queen than captain, holding this ship and its occasionally rebellious crew from deliberately dashing itself on any sharp rocks. "Broadly speaking."

For the span of three or four breaths, the tension held; and then the moment passed.

Madi turned to her right. "What is your opinion on the matter?"

Flint stroked his beard. "There is still a chance that Rogers or the Guthrie family will want to ransom her. I see no harm in putting such a decision off for a little while longer."

"I agree with that." Madi folded her hands on the table in front of her. "I would like to propose that we postpone our current discussion in favor of addressing the new crews that are arriving to join the fleet, and how we propose to maintain order on the beach as our forces expand further. Can we all agree upon that? Yes? Let us go on."

* * *

Abed at night, Madi smoothed her hand down Flint's chest while he spoke of the progress of their armada. His voice rumbled through her.

"With the number of other ships we've been able to recruit," he said, "and the British and the Spanish preoccupied with one another, I think we have a fighting chance of taking Boston."

"Boston," she murmured. This was their pillow-talk: the losses of the past, the possible victories of tomorrow.

"You're skeptical."

"No." She propped herself up on her elbow, chin in hand. "But the others will be. Teach and Rackham's ardor for war has cooled, now that they've carried out their vengeance on Governor Rogers."

Flint was silent for a long while. The candlelight danced like flames in the red of his beard. "But not on the one that they deem ultimately responsible."

"Eleanor?" Flint cocked an eyebrow back at her as Madi stirred. "You would use Eleanor as a bargaining chip, in spite of the fact that besides Max, we are the only ones standing between her and the gallows?"

Flint sighed. "She sought our defeat."

"As we sought hers."

"What do you wish from her? Remorse? For holding your father as chattel when she had every opportunity to free him?"

She recoiled as if stung, or bitten.

"And have you ever offered your remorse? Your crew sold slaves when it suited your purposes, did you not? As if remorse alone could satisfy what my people and I have witnessed. What we have suffered."

Flint drew up in bed, fisting the sheets - his face angry, bloodless, and still.

"Go," Madi said.

Flint dressed and went.

* * *

Once more, Max caught her after the conclusion of another fractious council meeting. Madi was leaving, with Kofi in front of her, and then the other woman was simply _there_ \- integrating herself into Madi's company as effortlessly as she seemed to breathe, as honestly and beautifully as she comported herself in her yellow dress and her jewelry and her rogue.

"I have done as you asked, in regards to what we spoke of last week," Max said, her voice low, "and I have heard very little in the way of rumor since then. One cannot expect it to go away completely, overnight."

"Thank you," Madi said, though she suspected that this was not the reason why Max had approached her.

"As I have done this, as you have asked, I hope that you will at least allow me to raise a matter with you, that concerns me very dearly."

They reached Madi's study and Kofi opened the door. Resigned, Madi gestured her inside. The study still did not look much different than from the way its previous occupant had kept it: it would be a long time, with Nassau's affairs such, that she would ever get around to something as ordinary as decorating. Except for bookcases, the walls were laid bare; the paintings had already been removed by her order, nearly as soon as she'd taken up residence. All the books she'd kept besides the volumes of Rogers' own autobiography - she had her own copies, and was hedging her hopes on never having cause to read them again, anyway.

She and Max sat, facing each other across the desk.

"It is Eleanor," Madi said, before the other woman could.

Max's brows raised for a fraction of a second, but then she schooled her face: impasse, reserved.

"You know my opinion on the matter, of course," Max said. "I was hoping that there was a chance that you might be of the same mind."

Madi glanced down at the sheaf of papers on her desk. There were no answers there, of course, but it wouldn't do to sigh.

She looked up again.

"I have been prepared to take my mother's place as long as I have been alive," she said. "So I know that, sometimes, it is necessary to place the interests of many above that of the one."

Max raised her voice. "And whose interests should it be in, besides Jack's and Teach's, that Eleanor die?"

"It is in the interest of our alliance," Madi said. "To keep Nassau united. To keep Nassau _free._ And to make others who still labor under England's chains free."

"I understand what it means to live under their chains, visible or no," Max said. Her expression was calm, her voice even again. "And I have no desire to see any inhabitant of this island returned to that condition, because some have not had their appetites for war fully sated."

"And what if what the inhabitants of this island want is Eleanor Guthrie's head on a pike? Are you willing to give your street that?"

Max's brows drew together.

"I thought as much," Madi said. "It is personal."

"There is no one for whom such a war is not personal!"

"Captain Flint and I - "

"Captain Flint was prepared to wage war on England, on anyone, long before you and your people entered into it," Max said. "I am simply suggesting that there is another path, between the options that you see myself and Captain Flint presenting. An option to wage war against civilization from the inside."

"You wish to come between me and my partner," Madi said.

"I wish to come between you and foolish ruin," Max answered. "Just as I did with Governor Rogers and Eleanor. They did not heed my counsel, as you can see."

"What I can see is that you still seek to have a hold over this place, and will do whatever it takes to maintain that hold. I do not think there is anything more I can say to satisfy you, for now."

Max sighed. She considered her hands, folded in her lap.

"Do me one small courtesy, at least," Max said. "Go and see her. She sees no one but her English woman, who will not abandon her, and the doctor."

"She is ill?"

"Frequently," Max said.

That did not leave much for Madi to consider. "I will go."

* * *

Madi had not seen Eleanor Guthrie in over a decade, but when Eleanor glanced up at Madi as she entered the cell beneath the fort - she knew.

The cell was sparsely furnished: a cot, an uneven table, a crooked chair. Madi took the chair across from the woman who had once been her sister.

"Who else knows?"

Eleanor shrugged, still staring at the floor. "Mrs. Hudson. Maybe Max."

 _Certainly Max._ Madi did not feel so much a queen in this moment as a pawn.

"I know we have ended up on opposite sides of this thing," Madi began. "I do not doubt that your intentions for Nassau were good, even if your judgements were less so. But you were my sister, and I revered you once, and as much as part of me cries out that you have allowed my people to suffer as much as anyone on this island, I have no true desire to see you suffer."

"I have no need of your pity."

"Eleanor, there are men outside of this room who are considering the day and manner of your execution even as we speak," Madi said. Still Eleanor did not move. Seeing the other woman slumped over, dirty, pale, unspeaking - the hairs on the back of Madi's neck rose straight up. "I would like to help you. Is that possible?"

"I will not go in front of those men and apologize. I am not going to grovel for those men," Eleanor snarled. For the first time, she raised her chin and met Madi's eyes. Hers were red-ringed but sharp with defiance. "I am not going to beg. They would have had me hanged just for daring to be a woman in charge of this place. There are too many damned men here. And I am fucking sick of them."

"And Governor Rogers?" Madi prodded. "By all reports, he awaits his wife's return to London."

Eleanor turned away again. Her pale hands clenched into fists in her lap. "I am wedded only to Nassau. This was  _my_ home, my house before any of those men sitting in my fucking tavern, in my fucking parlor, planted their flags here. And you would ask me to leave it?"

"It is my house now," Madi said. Eleanor's head snapped up at that, her eyes wide, angry. "And if it were up to me alone, I would let you stay - but you know that things are not so. And what of this other life that you risk?"

"Where will I go?" Eleanor asked. "To London? A place I have only seen through the bars of a prison wagon? To Boston? My fucking family has no need for the criminal daughter of their disowned, least-favored son to come begging at their doorstep, pregnant and penniless - who ruined another woman's marriage and then her own. Who would take one whiff of that scandal and not turn away?"

Self-pity suited Eleanor so poorly: she didn't want to cry, Madi realized. She just wanted to rage.

"Let us write to them, at least," Madi said. She reached out and brushed the back of Eleanor's hand.

Eleanor closed her eyes, and then nodded. The anger seeped out of her, black drainage from a festering wound.

They sat together, in silence, while Eleanor's breathing evened out.

"Mr. Scott. I heard he died."

"Yes." Madi struggled to keep her voice even. So much loss. So much sacrifice, for such a simple thing as freedom. "My mother and I, we were both with him."

Madi still carried the loss in her heart, but the thought of her father's death no longer brought tears to her eyes: she'd spilled them all, that day, on John's shoulder. That was when she had started to know, when his arms came around her quaking shoulders.

A tremble shook Eleanor's frame. She was lean, far frailer than a woman in her condition ought to be, as though she had not been eating. Whether that was because of sickness or apathy, Madi couldn't decide.

"Your mother. She's…well?"

"Yes," Madi said. "She will come here soon, help the women and children from our camp settle in the interior. I think that she would like to see you."

"I think I would like that as well," Eleanor said, quietly. "It…must have been difficult for her. To be separated from your father for so long. To have to take care of you and so many others."

"I am certain it was." Madi was learning it herself. "I cannot say that I know her mind completely, but I do not think there is much she or my father would have done differently."

Eleanor's face was half-turned from hers, partially shadowed in this dim, dank room. She said,

"Is it possible, do you think, to live a life of isolation, and uncertainty, and be happy, as long as it's lived with someone you love?"

"I believe it is," Madi said. She squeezed Eleanor's hand.

Eleanor said, at last, "We can send a letter to Boston."

For the first time since Madi had entered the cell, Eleanor looked - calm. Not furious, not blank, but steady. Enough so that Madi felt comfortable to leave her.

She rose to leave, hand raised to knock on the door when Eleanor's voice stopped her.

"Madi."

She turned around.

"Max told me that Flint partnered with you and your mother to bring this war. I want to offer you some advice, as someone who's been in your position."

Madi pressed one hand to her stomach. "Go on."

"S-someone accused me once of being willing to betray absolutely anyone," Eleanor said. "In fairness, it was true at the time. But it's also been true of Flint as long as I've known him. He fucks everyone in the end, when they no longer serve his purpose: Mr. Gates. Hornigold. Vane. His own fucking crew. Me. Don't make the mistake the rest of us did."

"And what is that?"

"Thinking you won't be next," Eleanor said, with a shake of her head. "The only person he ever really, truly listened to was Mrs. Barlow."

Madi sucked in a deep breath. "He listened to John Silver."

"Yes," Eleanor said, "and where is he?"

* * *

"I am willing to argue Eleanor's case with the council," Madi said. The evening was already deepening around them, as Max welcomed her into her office in the inn. Madi nodded to Kofi, who waited outside the doors as Max closed them.

The room was dark and quiet. The other woman moved about, lighting more candles. Madi knew that this had been Eleanor's, once; there were still traces of her here, set back in the corners - a dollhouse Madi remembered playing with - and she did not know enough about Max to know where the evidence of Eleanor ended and the evidence of Max began.

"I am happy to hear that." Max sat behind her desk, gesturing to the chair.

"I require more than assurances of your support with the street," Madi said, her hands folded over the back of the chair. "And you know it. You believe that you have some information so valuable to me that you would not hint that you had it, not until you were convinced that I would help Eleanor."

"As you implied before," Max said, "I am a woman desperately clinging to power."

Madi ignored this. "You will tell me what it is that is so important for me to know."

Max looked up at her, eyes still, hands still where they were folded on top of the desk. The whole room was silent, as if on a held breath.

"Secure Eleanor's release," Max said, "and I will tell you where you may find John Silver."


End file.
